The end of last week marked the one month point of my stay in Kenya, just under halfway through my trip. And I can’t believe how quickly the time has been going! Each week seems to move by faster; orientation week was slow, as was my first week with my host family and at my host organization. But as I continually gain more responsibilities and independence, the days (and weeks) have started to fly by. Last week at work I was able to set up a work plan for the remainder of my time at Mahiakalo. It took all of two weeks to really get a feel for how the center works and what kinds of obstacles they face daily. At the end of the previous week I passed my ideas by my coworkers and supervisor. Since I’m the first intern to work at their organization, they weren’t particularly critical of any of my ideas, but gaging by their responses (“it’s good” vs. “yes, it is very good”), I was able to mold my ideas in a direction that would be most suitable to their wants and needs. I think. It’s been odd having so much independence in terms of my work plan; after 13 years of being told exactly what to study, read, and report, being on my own has been a little scary. FSD does check over all the interns’ work plans to make sure we are contributing “sustainable development” (hence Foundation for Sustainable Development), so I know at least my ideas aren’t totally off track. But at the same time I feel like absolutely anything I would have suggested to my supervisor she would have given me the OK.
Anyways, for my actual work plan, my objectives are threefold. (I’ll keep it brief for now and elaborate as I implement a given aspect). First, I hope to improve office efficiency. Right now the only way to check for child updates is by going through every file and checking dates for home visits, school visits, photo updates, and the like. I will be starting a simple excel program that can easily generate “update reports,” rather than manually checking every child folder (which took me a good part of two weeks). At the end of last week we installed a brand-new computer (alas, a PC…) in MY office- I feel spoiled! But this will make my work a lot easier. Secondly, I am trying to identify reasons for child absences and departures from the program. The two tie together, since most departures result from an accumulation of successive absences. In just 2011, about eight children have been departed from the program, and if looking through the files, you will find a lot of gaps in the numbering (from completions or departures). I started my work in this objective last week; I went through attendance records for 2010 and 2011 and generated a report showing which age group was absent the most and why (school, sick, or other). I also wrote a questionnaire regarding absences and general interest in the program, and had it distributed it to all the kids aged 12 and above at the program last Saturday. This week I’ll be going on school visits to distribute the questionnaire to as many of the absent children (my target audience) as possible. Thirdly, I will be holding weekly seminars/discussions with the 19-21 age group about technology, peer mentoring, health, etc. I hope that by the end of my time here, the kids will be able and ready to take more responsibility during the Saturday program by being youth mentors to the primary-aged kids.
That’s the general outline for the rest of my summer at work. Home life is a whole separate topic entirely. I’ll start with a story…
It was 6:45 in the morning; the sun was up but the air was still cool. I had woken up early to go for a run, my first form of real exercise in almost two weeks. Much to my surprise, Momma Mary was all for the idea of me going for a run when I suggested it the night before. She even said it was okay if I wear my running shorts rather than pants. So I walked out of my room in my running shorts, Duke T-shirt, and tennis shoes, feeling more American than ever. Momma Mary was in the kitchen already working on the dishes from dinner the night before. “Are you ready?” She asked me. After agreeing, she said “Okay, I will take you to where you can run.”
I couldn’t help but think I had finally gotten a chance at independence, being able to run along the main road as I liked. But how wrong I was. Momma Mary walked me just across the road and up a small hill to the gate of a primary school. She instructed me to run around the “nice big field” and come back when I was finished. Not only was the field quite small, but also maybe 70 kids were around the yard already cleaning the grounds with more arriving by the minute. I started my laps (each lap took just under 2 minutes) while the eyes of all the kids followed me all the way around. Every time I would pass the school building or the area where the kids where sweeping the grounds they would yell out to me “Hello! Habari! How are you!” One brave 10-year-old came up to me and quickly shook my hand as I passed. I felt so foreign. On my third lap around the field, before I had gotten a good feel for the grounds, I fell into a pothole hidden by the rough and grassy terrain. I was literally on my hands and knees with 100 pairs of eyes on me (by this point more kids have arrived), and of course, the kids thought my fall was just hilarious. I guess when I step back and look the scene, it was pretty funny. All I could do was dust myself off, laugh at myself, and keep going. I finished my run after 15 very long minutes I went back to my house and got myself ready for work.
The next few days I would take 5 laps around the school before going down the main road for the rest of the run. Even though I still get a lot of attention from the inflow of workers walking to town to start their day, it’s a little better than causing such a scene at the school. Maybe after a few weeks they (the workers AND the school children) will get used to me?
Even though running has not been the most peaceful time each morning, I’ve welcomed it as a nice break from a home life that seems to revolve around food. I wake up in the morning, get myself ready, eat some breakfast. When I get home from work, the first thing I’m to do is take tea. Then after about an hour of relaxing, the evening activity is cooking dinner. And then it’s bed time. Last week was unusual in that we had a few “easy dinners,” which means there’s not much to do in the kitchen and I don’t get to help prepare the meals. Actually, we had exactly three “easy dinners,” all in a row, and I quickly learned that these dinners are NOT my favorite. The main dish, and I repeat, three nights in a row, was chicken liver. I knew something was strange when my host mom declared that we’d be eating “meat” rather than the usual clarification of beef or chicken. And something was definitely strange when my spoon slid easily through the twice-too-large-for-bite-size piece of “meat,” as the beef and chicken are typically very tough. I needed to know what I was getting myself into, and just as I swallowed my first bite, I asked, “What type of meat is this?” Chicken liver. “Ohh, it’s good!” (I shouldn’t have said that.) Either way, the first night we had it was rough. I was a little grossed out, plus Momma Mary decided to serve me a heaping spoonful of this meat. She has caught on to the fact that I usually pick around the fat and bones that make up half of most meat dishes, so this was my chance to eat a lot of meat. I thought it would be best to get the food down as quickly as possible with large bites, but the liver just seemed to expand in my mouth. But I will at least concede that chicken liver must be an acquired taste, because even by the third night it wasn’t so bad. I learned that taking smaller bites and mixing it with the pasta or matoke (cooked bananas) makes it very tolerable.
Now that my blog post is sufficiently scattered and officially too long, I’ll end with a brief update of my weekend. Weekends up to this point have been very relaxed, and honestly, very long. With the exception of a day trip to Kisumu one Sunday, most Saturdays and Sundays consist of a lot of sitting around. Church services and meetings carry on for hours upon end; thank goodness at least the Saturday meetings are conducted in English. This past weekend was a change in pace. Friday all of the interns decided it would be fun to go out to the disco together. Momma Mary didn’t want me traveling alone in the dark, so I met up with the group Friday around 6 pm and went to one of the other girl’s host family’s house for dinner. This house was closer to town than my own and right next to two other homes, which made it easy for us to coordinate rides. We went out to the disco shortly after nine, and the dancing was really fun! A time or two I claimed to be married, which works like a charm if you want to get rid of a persistent local. (I promise this isn’t as shady as it sounds. We were all safe and looking out for each other. Our program leader even brought us to this disco our first week here to show us where we could go if we wanted to go out, and he dropped us off there that night.) At around midnight we were partied out and called a taxi to take us back to our homes. Midnight is pretty late for Kenya- well, maybe it’s just late for me, there were still quite a few locals going strong!
Speaking of being late, it’s just past 11 pm here, so I’m off to sleep. Goodnight and until next time!
Training in Kenya is grounds for disqualification from the 4th of July 4x4. It's just a friendly competition Lainey, you don't need to take it so seriously.
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